I kept reading about the first base encounter owning people, so I went in with hyper precautions. 
Basically my squad setup for all missions is 2 assault, 2 sniper, 1 heavy and 1 support, all skilled up.
The snipers do most of the killing, they both have the altitude perk, as well as squad sight and target health -> aim, as well as double tap which is incredibly OP. Both assaults have the better reaction perks. 
I never ever charge, I always have at least half my team on overwatch after every turn. Overwatch is basically the best way to keep everyone alive, its almost a win button.  
But yeah, if you absolutely need to have someone rush foward, always have at least two members overwatching them.  
The range on snipers is insane if they have the squad perk so I always keep them way back, in elevated spots. 
In difficult missions like the base, I always resort to having my snipers establish cover while assult rushes in; if assault detects enemies, I rush the assault back with run and gun, bringing them back closer to safety while giving them the ability to fire back, and exposing the targets for the rest of the squad which is in overwatch.  
 
Like Jeff and Ryan say in the podcast, patience = win, as soon as you rush forward, you die.  
Completed the base mission without casualties or any damage taken.

@warxsnake: What difficulty setting are you playing on?

@warxsnake: Well yeah, if you go into the base with a fully leveled up crew, you're going to do pretty well. I think most of the horror stories come from people completely underestimating the length of the base assault and how tough the enemies will be (fairly frequent chrysalids and mutons), and going in with so-so equipment and so-so soldiers. Especially if you do the tutorial, the game basically rushes you through all of the early game story objectives, and leaves you only one or two steps away from assaulting the base.

In reality, you should be taking your time, saving some money, and researching some stuff, instead of just attacking the base within like 2 or 3 hours of finishing the tutorial.

@warxsnake: What difficulty setting are you playing on?

@warxsnake: Well yeah, if you go into the base with a fully leveled up crew, you're going to do pretty well. I think most of the horror stories come from people completely underestimating the length of the base assault and how tough the enemies will be (fairly frequent chrysalids and mutons), and going in with so-so equipment and so-so soldiers. Especially if you do the tutorial, the game basically rushes you through all of the early game story objectives, and leaves you only one or two steps away from assaulting the base.

In reality, you should be taking your time, saving some money, and researching some stuff, instead of just attacking the base within like 2 or 3 hours of finishing the tutorial.

@warxsnake: Yeah, I imagine on the difficulties above normal you don't have the luxury of just messin' around, because you'll fail missions more often, meaning your panic levels will actually be a real concern, and you need to be pretty quick about stopping the alien threat. On normal, I've only aborted one mission (and while that mission did go super bad, I was still able to get 2 of my guys back to the Skyranger), and I'm just about to do what seems like the final mission. Instead of doing it, I'm just passing the time doing more regular missions trying to research everything.

Also, I've only encountered Sectoid commanders 2 times (once in the base assault because you have to, and on one mission like directly after that). I didn't capture one, and I haven't seen them since. I don't know if the enemy pool has progressed past them or something, but it's the only thing I haven't done, and it's kind of pissing me off.

Just did that mission this evening. Not too bad on normal. Wasn't anticipating how large the area was though. I must have spent 75% of my time in that base just inching my guys forward looking for things to kill. Only lost one assault fellow. I had been using him as cannon fodder and bait for several missions, yet he somehow kept managing to dodge total death. Gravely wounded four missions in a row. His name was Lt. Martin "Hot Dog" Weiss. He was German. He liked weinerschnitzel and warsteiner beer. Poor guy. T____T

Anyway, funny thing about this mission. I managed to capture the commander alive. Game devs apparently didn't think this was a likely outcome, i think, as the cinematic right after that mission shows the commander dead on a gurney in the lab with lab lady talking about doing an autopsy. Only after the cinematic is over does the lab lady acknowledge it actually being alive and in the interrogation room. haha. I was PISSED for a second there. Thought the game had cheated me out of my righteous live collar. xD

Yeah, like the guys in the Quick Look, I was at the base part but kept feeling like I wasn't quite ready. Finally when I had 4 colonels and top tier armor and weapons I gave it a shot, and it went flawlessly.

There's something really fun about XCOM when shit's going bad though. I'll have to play another game on a higher difficulty.

Yep, it was a joke for me as well. The only enemies that have been even slightly annoying are sectoid commanders with their mind control. Everything else dies before it can do any real harm. Only using light plasma rifles too. Grenades can suck but it seems they'll only throw them if they can hit more than one of your guys.

I run through very difficult rated missions barely taking damage. The only missions that have provided any sort of difficulty have been the terror attacks and that seems mostly dependent on the map. I had one that took place in some 3 story building and a bunch of chrysalids were running around murdering civilians because I just couldn't find them quick enough to kill them.

I've held off on doing all of the story missions as long as possible to get the most benefit from the global panic reduction and launching satellites to hold out even longer. I'm guessing this is what most people are missing out on when they say the game is hard (at least on normal).

you've probably been grinding too much, then.

Ya, if your put off priority missions it ramps up the difficulty to push you forward, but it does it reeeeeeeally slowly. You can grind forever before anything major pops up. I'm doing awesome on Classic basically just because I took forever to build my containment cells.

Isn't that the only sane strategy though? I mean, this is a strategy isn't it? Why would I take the only mission that gives global panic reduction when no one is panicked? Panic reduction is probably the single most valuable resource in the entire game and it on global scale is that much better. There is nothing beneficial at all from doing it sooner rather than later.

@Anomareh: I don't know how the fuck panic levels aren't a problem on classic mode. I beelined the story missions, never failed an abduction, had only one not-intercepted UFO, and 5 countries were at 5-panic when the Skeleton Key completed. I loaded up my best and went in three days before the council meeting.

I had five satellites, at the end of the third month.

Luckily everything went a-okay.

@Forderz: I'm on Classic and Panic is only a problem for me when I fail Terror missions (automatic withdrawal). After that you just have to pay attention to panic levels throughout the continent, not just the country, when you pick Abduction missions. If the mission choices are, say, UK, Argentina, and Egypt, and those three countries are fine to let chill for a bit, but the rest of Europe is on the verge of panic, you better go to the UK. Panic rises among the entire continent when you don't do a mission there, but only drops in the country you did the mission in (I hope that makes sense and I got that right)